Tap and Die Holders (with a twist)

tjb

tjb

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What I have made is far more spartan than Mitch's and David's stellar work in this thread:
www.hobby-machinist.com

Tailstock Tap & Die Holder

So another tool that has been a life-saver for me is this tap & die holder for the tailstock on my lathe. The plans for the main body I got from Clickspring, who does absolutely amazing work. I stayed pretty close to his plans with the exception of a die adapter that I decided to make for...
www.hobby-machinist.com www.hobby-machinist.com

I'm usually pretty respectful of my tools and equipment, but I've never been satisfied with my relatively cheap tap and die holders. My tap wrench finally bit the dust at about the time I watched Mitch's thread, so rather than buying a new one, I decided to take a shot at making my own.

This more conventional tap wrench was fairly straightforward. Different from Mitch and David's, and not much to comment on it except that it required some very careful measuring and milling. The fit on my first attempt was too sloppy for my taste, so I re-made it with much tighter tolerances. It's much weightier than my deceased store-bought model, and it's machined very flat so I can use it on the lathe simply by pressing it against the quill on the tail stock. (I'm ruminating on building one that's dedicated to the lathe - something like the die holder described below. We'll see.)
IMG_1968.jpgIMG_1970.jpgIMG_1969.jpg

The die holder is a little more creative. It occurred to me that the shank for a die holder is a little superfluous. Quite a bit of bulk and length could be removed if, instead of mounting the die in a shanked holder, it just slipped 'over' the quill instead of 'into' it. With tight enough tolerances, it should serve the same purpose. Here's my solution. The attached fourteen second video was taken after milling the blank that became the body of the holder. Make sure you have the volume turned up when you get to the end.
IMG_1814.jpgIMG_1979.jpgIMG_1980.jpg


Regards,
Terry
 
Sometimes you just get lucky. As I mentioned in the original post, I thought about making a tap holder that would slip over the tailstock quill, similar to the die holder. Yesterday I went down to the shop to begin trying to visualize a design for one. The biggest challenge I could foresee was how to fabricate an adjustable holder that would maintain centricity for different size taps. Both jaws would need to move simultaneously and equally. I tried to visualize various designs to accomplish this, and it was beginning to look like a pretty challenging build.

When my older tap wrench broke, out of necessity I bought a couple of different sized holders from my local Lowe's for an immediate project. I didn't like them because they were a little light duty and just didn't appear to be particularly well designed, but they held taps pretty nicely.

So I'm trying to figure out how I can make a holder that is self-centering, and I took a look at the two I bought. One thing occurred pretty immediately: They were both self-centering. I took them apart and studied the spring system they incorporated, and it looked like it could be copied pretty easily. Then I got lucky. I noticed that the base of the smaller holder was a 1" hex - just like the die holder that I had made. It dropped right into my nifty die holder perfectly. I had to make a hex base for the larger one that pressed on to its shaft, and it, too, dropped firmly into the die holder. Both fit great and work flawlessly. That's about the easiest project I've ever done in the shop.

Regards

IMG_1986.jpgIMG_1987.jpgIMG_1988.jpg
 
tjb said:
Sometimes you just get lucky. As I mentioned in the original post, I thought about making a tap holder that would slip over the tailstock quill, similar to the die holder. Yesterday I went down to the shop to begin trying to visualize a design for one. The biggest challenge I could foresee was how to fabricate an adjustable holder that would maintain centricity for different size taps. Both jaws would need to move simultaneously and equally. I tried to visualize various designs to accomplish this, and it was beginning to look like a pretty challenging build.

When my older tap wrench broke, out of necessity I bought a couple of different sized holders from my local Lowe's for an immediate project. I didn't like them because they were a little light duty and just didn't appear to be particularly well designed, but they held taps pretty nicely.

So I'm trying to figure out how I can make a holder that is self-centering, and I took a look at the two I bought. One thing occurred pretty immediately: They were both self-centering. I took them apart and studied the spring system they incorporated, and it looked like it could be copied pretty easily. Then I got lucky. I noticed that the base of the smaller holder was a 1" hex - just like the die holder that I had made. It dropped right into my nifty die holder perfectly. I had to make a hex base for the larger one that pressed on to its shaft, and it, too, dropped firmly into the die holder. Both fit great and work flawlessly. That's about the easiest project I've ever done in the shop.

Regards

View attachment 393467View attachment 393468View attachment 393469
Click to expand...
I'd like to find those holders, they are like my general t wrenches.way better than the 4 finger type.

+1
 
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woodchucker said:
I'd like to find those holders, they are like my general t wrenches.way better than the 4 finger type.

+1
Click to expand...
I'll go down to the shop in the morning and get info for you.
 
Do you gently spin the tailstock lead screw or (on short threads) let the outer cylinder slide forward? I assume either way, the outer cylinder must be oiled and slide on the tailstock ram?

Thanks
 
AmericanMachinist said:
Do you gently spin the tailstock lead screw or (on short threads) let the outer cylinder slide forward? I assume either way, the outer cylinder must be oiled and slide on the tailstock ram?

Thanks
Click to expand...
Yes, using the tailstock lead screw to maintain slight pressure is pretty much exactly what I do. After the first couple of rotations, there is enough bite in the thread that I can slide the tailstock back and proceed by hand. I've not found it necessary to oil the quill - it's a very snug fit but by no means even close to a 'press' fit. That's a good suggestion, though. I'll probably start doing that.

Thanks for the response.

Regards
 
The smaller size tap wrench I got from Lowe's is an Irwin #0 - 1/4" T-Handle Tap Wrench (Item #62264/Model #1766068). That was the one that directly slipped into the 1" hex on my die holder. The larger size was a more complicated Blue Point wrench that doesn't show up on their website (at least not my local store). I bought it at the same time as the Irwin - it may have been a specialty or discontinued item. That was the one that had a longer shaft for which I needed to fabricate a hex head.

However, I discovered on Lowe's website that they also carry the Irwin wrench in 1/4" - 1/2" size (Item #63252/Model #1766069). That one almost certainly has the same 1" hex body and should slip directly into a die holder.

If this works, here are links to the items on Lowe's website:



If you need any more info, let me know.

Regards,
Terry
 
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